I was going to dedicate my evening to watching a certain FBI agent and his therapist, and so had eshewed my always political Facebook feed for my nearly-entirely-silly Tumblr account when something scrolled across my dash.
As I knew from my brief flirtations with Facebook tonight, Texas Representative Wendy Davis is embarking on a 13-hour filibuster to protect the tens of thousands of women served by clinics which provide abortions in Texas. Watch it live here:
Until I started writing this post, I wasn’t listening to the livestream. Not because I don’t care–I do. I was just saving my emotional capacity for tomorrow’s big SCOTUS decision. But this jarred me back into political livestream:
Kel Seliger is sitting in that room, and he’s doing nothing. He will vote in favor of this bill. And he’s the one who technically represents me.
But like thousands of other Texas women…Wendy Davis is the only person who is representing me and my interests as they pertain to the Texas Legislature.
Because I regularly ask people to reach out to their “representatives” and in fact the idea of a representative democracy requires people to feel represented in the state houses and capitols of our nation. When someone’s preferred candidate loses, she should still feel represented by the winning candidate.
I find it difficult to imagine feeling represented by an individual who would treat my body as publicly-manipulable property, particularly who would so casually dismiss the basics of female reproductive anatomy.
I tend to be a pragmatic gall and get along great with a wide range of friends, pro-life, pro-choice, somewhere in the middle. But I entirely understand this tumblr user’s feelings when she says:
Wendy Davis is representing me,
PS: No matter how you count my residency, all of my representatives at the state, city, and federal level are pro-choice as of right now, but that may not always be the case. And I work to ensure it will be.
Inspirational Quote:
“Members, I’m rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of Texans who have been ignored.”–Wendy Davis
